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During the holiday season, we always get a few Christmas-themed movies in theaters—typically lovable stories about Santa and his elves and the joy of the season. But there’s nothing sweet or heartwarming about director John Woo’s gritty holiday thriller Silent Night—an action movie with an unexpected twist.
Silent Night stars Joel Kinnaman as Brian Godlock, a loving husband and father whose life is forever changed after his young son is caught in the middle of a gang shooting. Brian chases the shooters but ends up barely escaping death himself—and the incident leaves him unable to speak. After he’s released from the hospital, the only thing that keeps him going is his need for revenge. So he begins planning and training, digging up all the information he can find on the gang that killed his son and left him for dead, and preparing for battle.
As Brian trains his way through the year, plotting to get his revenge on the anniversary of his son’s death, the story plays out without a single line of dialogue. The rest of the sound is the same—if not slightly heightened by the lack of dialogue—but any words that are spoken here are either unintelligible shouts or otherwise muffled by some kind of barrier. It’s an interesting twist—one that definitely takes some getting used to—and I’m not sure that it was entirely necessary. But it’s fascinating to see how the filmmakers manage to tell the story in other ways: often through flashbacks and montages and the occasional text or written note. It does feel a little gimmicky—and viewers might tire of it after a while—but it’s definitely an intriguing way to tell a story.
Of course, in a movie like this one, the dialogue is secondary anyway. What really matters here is the action—and, in typical John Woo style, there’s a whole lot of action. It has its share of silent tension and drama, but, most of all, it’s gritty and bloody and incredibly violent—beyond the typical revenge thriller. And it all leads up to one big, brutal free-for-all in the end.
So if you’re tired of the typical holiday movies and want to ring in the holiday season with something that’s more action-packed, Silent Night is definitely an un-Christmassy Christmas movie. It’s a tense thriller with a dialogue-free twist that makes it stand out from the usual action movie.
Brace yourself for a violent holiday when Silent Night arrives in theaters on December 1, 2023.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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